By surface treatment, as e.g. sanding or polishing, of various items, it is known to use grinding and polishing members which are mounted on a grinding head. Such a grinding head may be designed with a cylindric drum on which the grinding members are mounted at the surface of the drum. Other types of grinding heads may be disc-shaped or built up as a combination of disc-shaped and cylindric parts. The design is typically made in relation to which items that are to be worked. However, it is typical of these grinding heads that they are provided with a kind of dovetail grooves in which a number of abrasive and/or brush members are mounted. These members may include abrasive paper, brushes of fibre, hair, steel or other metals and combinations of these, e.g. in the form of retainer brushes that support the abrasive paper during use. The abrasive paper can e.g. be sandpaper for buffing wood, metal and the like, canvas and/or fabric polishing, or leather. Brushes, support brushes and/or retainer brushes may e.g. be steel brushes, plastic brushes or other types of brushes.
In the following, these members are designated by a common term as tool members.
Such tool members can be made of a plastic material, in which abrasive paper and brushes are embedded by moulding a plastic member around abrasive paper and brush. Alternatively, brushes and/or abrasive paper can be fixed in a metal rail by squeezing the latter around the brushes and/or the abrasive paper of which the tool member in question is to be made, or in other suitable ways.
On a typical grinding head are arranged as an average between 30 and 60 tool members which are to be replaced regularly by industrial use. Such a replacement may typically occur in two ways. Either by replacing the entire grinding head with a “fresh” corresponding grinding head, or by replacing individual tool members one by one by pulling them out of the dovetail grooves in which they are mounted and substitute them with new tool members. The choice of which methods to be used somehow depends on whether there is time for performing the required exchange of the individual tool members, or whether it is about keeping a production running since it then may be more expedient to replace the entire grinding head and subsequently prepare the worn grinding head.
Different types of grinding heads with different types of dovetail grooves are on the market. For each of these grinding heads are then provided different types of tool members, including brushes and abrasive members as mentioned above.
The drawback of the different types of grinding head, and for that matter also of the different types of tool members for use in these grinding heads, is that the different tool members do not fit all types of grinding heads. The customer is therefore often bound to buy tool members from the same supplier who has supplied the grinding head, which obviously contributes to keeping the price of consumables like tool members at a high level.
From WO 01/76824 is known a grinding member for mounting in a recess in a peripheral surface on a grinding head. The abrasive member includes a securing means with a groove in which abrasive paper, support brushes and/or retainer brushes can be fitted. The base part of the grinding member has inclining sidewalls that fit a corresponding groove in the surface of the grinding head. The disadvantage of this abrasive element and of many others is that they only fit in a grinding head made particularly for these grinding elements, and vice versa, which obviously can be a source of annoyance as not all providers of such equipment have all the different types of tool members in their product program. Therefore, it is often necessary to acquire many different types of grinding heads in order to perform different tasks, obviously entailing increased use of time for setup on the respective machines on which the grinding head is used and also a greater investment in grinding heads.
From WO 2007/009466 is known a grinding tool containing a cylindric drum provided with undercut grooves in which profiled strips are arranged. The profiled strips comprise a bottom strip designed for replaceable accommodation of a bottom profile arranged with a number of brushes and abrasive elements. It is a drawback that the grinding tool is adapted such that only a specifically designed profiled strip fits the grinding tool. It is not possible for a user to apply grinding tools from one supplier and tool members from another supplier. The user is bound by the assortment that is available at the individual suppliers.